Tamil Nadu dissolves panel on Union-state relations formed under MK Stalin

The Tamil Nadu government has disbanded a committee on Union-state relations formed under former chief minister MK Stalin, transferring its work to the State Law Commission. A government order issued on Friday, November 6, said the committee's functions overlapped with the Commission's mandate.

The three-member High-Level Committee on Union-State Relations was constituted in April 2025, following an announcement by Stalin in the Legislative Assembly. It was tasked with reviewing constitutional provisions, law, and policies governing Union-state relations, and recommending measures to strengthen federalism and state autonomy.

The committee was chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Kurian Joseph. Retired IAS officer K Ashok Vardhan Shetty and former State Planning Commission vice-chairman M Naganathan were its other members. It submitted Part I of its report to Stalin on February 16 this year.

The report recommended that governors be given mandatory timelines to act on bills passed by state legislatures. It also called for a categorical rejection of the “One Nation, One Language” approach and proposed changes across several areas, including constitutional amendments, territorial reorganisation, elections, education, health, delimitation, and the Goods and Services Tax regime.

The November 6 order, issued by the Public (Law and Order, F) Department, said the Tamil Nadu State Law Commission had been reconstituted on August 7, with a broad mandate that included examining Union-state and interstate relations, reviewing existing laws and recommending improvements to the state's legal and institutional framework.

The order described the High-Level Committee as a “non-statutory body” and said its functions had considerable overlap with those assigned to the State Law Commission. The government had therefore decided to discontinue the committee's services with immediate effect.

However, according to The Hindu, the State Law Commission, which will now take up the committee’s work, is also an executive body constituted through a government order and is not a statutory body.

The government has directed the committee's secretary and officer to hand over all records and relevant papers to the State Law Commission, communicate the order to those concerned, and report compliance.